Provident Financial outsources data centre

Original data centre had outgrown head office space

Consumer credit company Provident Financial has outsourced its data centre following a head office move.

The contract signed with hosting firm Node4 came as Provident relocated its Bradford headquarters. Node4 will now manage Provident's existing data centre equipment in a new purpose-built facility.

Provident still wanted company technicians to have physical access to its data at a new facility so the close proximity of Node4's Wakefield facility was a key factor in choosing that provider.

Node4 has supplied Provident Financial with data centre space with an infrastructure spanning two separate sites. It also provided a wide area network (WAN) that connects the two data centres together, and which also links the Provident Financial head office.

Within the service, Node4 includes the "remote hands" service where its technical team can carry out minor jobs on Provident Financial’s behalf, to reduce frequent trips to the data centre by Provident staff.

Andrew Clark, IT transition manager at Provident Financial, said: “Our original head office had a data centre in it that had grown organically. It wasn’t a purpose-built environment as such and there were a number of issues that arose as a result."

Clark said the company did consider building a new data centre within the new head office building, but decided against it on the grounds of space, power and cost.

Clark said: “The remote hands facility in particular gives us confidence. The Node4 team know our environment and are more than capable to action our requests when needed, and do the job as an equivalent to one of our IT staff when smaller tasks need performing.”

Businesses are struggling to ensure their data centres cope with demand, according to analyst house IDC. The analyst said businesses were in a “rush” to bring data centres online, but that “there was still more demand than supply”.